Old Scout

Robert William Service 1874 – 1958



Is it because I'm bent and grey,
      Though wearing rather well,
That I can slickly get away
      With all the yarns I tell?
Is it because my bleary eye
      No longer beams with youth
That I can plant a whopping lie,
      And flout the truth?
      
I wonder why folks hark to me
      Where once they would have laughed?
They treat my yarns respectfully,
      No matter how they're daft.
They count the notches on my gun
      And stroke its polished butt,
Wanting to know why every one
      Of them was cut.

Indeed were I to stick to fact
      Their interest would flag;
Dramatically I must act
      The rôle of scalliwag;
A battle veteran to be,
      A frozen argonaut,
A castaway in coral sea,--
      Such a tommyrot!

And so with unction I conceive
      Invention wild and new,
Until I'm coming to believe
      My taradiddles true . . .
Is it because I'm old and sage,
      I draw a bow that's risky?
Or can it be--that lies with age
      Improve like whisky?

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Submitted on May 13, 2011

Modified on March 05, 2023

52 sec read
101

Quick analysis:

Scheme ABABCDCD EFEFGHGH IJIJEXEF KLKLMEME
Closest metre Iambic trimeter
Characters 957
Words 169
Stanzas 4
Stanza Lengths 8, 8, 8, 8

Robert William Service

Robert William Service was a poet and writer sometimes referred to as the Bard of the Yukon He is best-known for his writings on the Canadian North including the poems The Shooting of Dan McGrew The Law of the Yukon and The Cremation of Sam McGee His writing was so expressive that his readers took him for a hard-bitten old Klondike prospector not the later-arriving bank clerk he actually was Robert William Service was born 16 January 1874 in Preston England but also lived in Scotland before emigrating to Canada in 1894 Service went to the Yukon Territory in 1904 as a bank clerk and became famous for his poems about this region which are mostly in his first two books of poetry He wrote quite a bit of prose as well and worked as a reporter for some time but those writings are not nearly as well known as his poems He travelled around the world quite a bit and narrowly escaped from France at the beginning of the Second World War during which time he lived in Hollywood California He died 11 September 1958 in France Incidentally he played himself in a movie called The Spoilers starring John Wayne and Marlene Dietrich more…

All Robert William Service poems | Robert William Service Books

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